Francisco Ballesteros

Francisco Ballesteros (1770-29 June 1832) was a general of Spain during the Peninsular War.

Biography
Francisco Ballesteros was born in Zaragoza, Spain in 1770, and he served in the Spanish Army during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Peninsular War. After Napoleon I defeated Spain's popular armies, Ballesteros commanded operations against Marshal Nicolas Soult in southern Spain, and he fought the French to a draw at Albuera in 1812. He was arrested on 12 October 1812 and imprisoned in Ceuta after refusing to accept Viscount Wellington as the allied commander. In 1820, he was called back to Madrid to suppress the liberal revolution, but he instead mutinied and forced Fernando VII of Spain to draft a constitution. In 1823, he was forced to surrender to the French Army after France invaded Spain, and he went into exile in France, where he died in 1832.